We wanted to have a fancier dinner for our last night in Rome, so we chose this ‘classic’ restaurant.
Some people would say old-fashioned, but frankly, sometimes it’s great to sit on a ‘stuffy’ room, have linen on the tables and the reassurance that waiters won’t interrupt you every 5 minutes with a ‘HELLO GUYS ARE YOU FINDING EVERYTHING ALRIGHT????’
In fact, we perhaps went too old-fashioned and secluded, as we specifically requested a table INSIDE and not ‘al fresco’ like most of the dining customers. I would prefer to not have to worry about mosquitos, buskers, and perhaps the possibility of my bag being stolen (in no particular order). The waiter was surprised, but followed on our request, and guided us through the very labyrinthine layout of the restaurant and towards a sort of intimate living room where it was easy to make ourselves comfortable.
On to the food…
Starters
Fresh taste, and full of flavour. Not spending energy on imaginative arrangements and deconstructions, and simply focusing on the actual food instead. Good!
Mains
Since this place is a “fish” place we opted for such. I don’t really know why they came covered in things and on a bed of potato, but hey, to each its own.
Pre-dessert
This reminded me SO MUCH of the 80s. Specially the bowl with candies (it was a nice memory).
We were quite full by that time, so we just snacked on these.
Actual dessert
I had a tiramisù which is my absolutely favourite Italian dessert!
(The idea of a square dish precariously sitting on top of a smaller round dish was very confusing to me, and to date I still don’t understand why they did that).
Piazza Farnese, and a formula 1 road race
Outside, the giant bath tubs were still calmly sitting in the piazza. I was still very amused by them.
Instead of asking the waiter to call us a taxi, we walked to the nearby, busier square (Campo di Fiori, I think?), where we knew we could easily find a taxi.
Outside a bar, a taxi driver peeled his eyes off a TV and the football match that was being played, and accepted to take us, with a nod.
What followed was a most exceptional example of unexpected formula 1 road race.
We told him our hotel address, he nodded again, turned the radio on (tuned to the football match) and, without saying any other word until the end of the trip, sped through the streets and back-streets of Rome.
I couldn’t believe how fast we were going. It felt fast. Very fast. I couldn’t see the speedometer, but it definitely felt faster than “50” km/h. I took my phone out and turned Strava on to record. It was measuring in excess of 100 km/h. In a city.
Absurdly, it felt… safe. As if he knew what he was doing and which streets he was taking (no GPS-driven-driver here). But, regardless, that was way too fast for driving on a city.
Needless to say, we were back in the hotel in record time ?